FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   >>   >|  
an importation of Morse's School Geography would be of great service. We very often lose our patience when we hear about the great danger of life in America. I find very intelligent and respectable persons who fancy that life is held by a slight tenure in the Union, and that law and order are almost unknown. Now, the first week we were in London the papers teemed with accounts of murders in various parts of England. One newspaper detailed no less than eleven oases of murder, or executions on account of murders. Poison, however, seems just at present the prevailing method by which men and women are removed. As to accidents in travel, we, no doubt, have our full share; but since our arrival in England the railroad trains have had some pretty rough shakings, and the results in loss of life and limb would have passed for quite ugly enough, even had they happened in the west. I very much wish you could have been with us on Easter Monday, when we passed the day at Greenwich, and were at the renowned Greenwich Fair, which lasts for three days. The scene of revelry takes place in the Park, a royal one, and really a noble one. Here all the riff-raff and bobtail of London repair in their finery, and have a time. You can form no notion of the affair; it cannot be described. The upper part of the Park, towards the Royal Observatory, is very steep, and down this boys and girls, men and women, have a roll. Such scenes as are here to be witnessed we cannot match. Nothing can exceed the doings that occur. All the public houses swarm, and in no spot have I ever seen so many places for drinking as are here. The working-men of London, and apprentices, with wires and sweethearts, all turn out Easter Monday. It seems as though all the horses, carts, chaises, and hackney coaches of the city were on the road. We saw several enormous coal wagons crammed tightly with boys and girls. On the fine heath, or down, that skirts the Park, are hundreds of donkeys, and you are invited to take a halfpenny, penny, or twopenny ride. All sorts of gambling are to be seen. One favorite game with the youngsters was to have a tobacco box, full of coppers, stuck on a stick standing in a hole, and then, for a halfpenny paid to the proprietor, you are entitled to take a shy at the mark. If it falls into the hole, you lose; if you knock it off, and away from the hole, you take it. It _requires,_ I fancy, much adroitness and experience to make any thing at "shying
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
London
 

murders

 

England

 

halfpenny

 

Greenwich

 
passed
 
Monday
 

Easter

 

doings

 

public


places

 
drinking
 

working

 

houses

 

Observatory

 

shying

 

witnessed

 

Nothing

 

requires

 

scenes


experience
 

adroitness

 

exceed

 
sweethearts
 
hundreds
 
donkeys
 
skirts
 

standing

 

invited

 

coppers


youngsters

 
gambling
 

tobacco

 

twopenny

 

tightly

 
crammed
 

horses

 

chaises

 

favorite

 
hackney

coaches

 

proprietor

 

wagons

 
enormous
 

entitled

 

apprentices

 

newspaper

 

detailed

 

accounts

 
teemed